For thirty-five years, if you asked a SouthPark neighbor where to meet for a drink, the answer was Village Tavern. If you asked where the neighborhood gathered on a summer night, the answer involved the mall parking lot in some way. Both of those answers stopped being true in 2026, and the replacements have been rolling in so quietly, weekend by weekend, that the shift is easy to miss from a driveway.
The short version: the block across Carnegie from the mall is doing the work the mall used to do, and Symphony Park has turned into something closer to a rotating festival ground than a lawn. If you live here and you've been coasting on the same three dinner spots since last fall, the map has changed underneath you.
The Rotunda Corner Reset the Anchor
The most consequential change on the block is the one that took the longest to arrive. Village Tavern closed in late 2024 after 35 years in SouthPark, tucked inside a corner of the Rotunda Building as a mainstay for corporate lunches, family dinners and drinks after work. That corner sat dark through most of 2025.
Laurel Park quietly opened Dec. 26 in the space formerly home to Village Tavern. The team took its time. The name is a nod to the Carolina cherry laurel, an evergreen tree native to North Carolina, and a Chicago designer overhauled the 108-seat dining room with a neutral palette and natural elements like travertine walls, herringbone hardwood floors and cane-backed chairs. The sprawling 2,000-square-foot patio, with an open-air bar and fireside seating, opened in March.
The menu is where the reset shows up most clearly. The new American restaurant has a seasonal menu that changes regularly with the seasons, sourced from North Carolina farms, and executive chef Kameron Letarde leads the kitchen, bringing in global influences while maintaining the familiarity of its predecessor. Expect to pay about $100 per person. That's a different check average than the corporate lunch crowd that filled the space for three decades, and it's the clearest signal that the Rotunda corner is now aiming at dinner as an occasion rather than a habit.
The block picked up a second, very different anchor a few months later. The Craic is now in its soft-opening phase in SouthPark, an Irish-themed bar in the former Rusty Bucket space, aiming to be an all-day destination working just as well for brunch, business meetings, dinner and late-night drinks. Opening on Wednesday, April 15, 2026, The Craic will stay open daily from 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. and will serve food until 1 a.m. The 4,622-square-foot space seats nearly 200 people across multiple dining rooms, and there are about 20 TVs strategically placed above the bar and in nearly every corner, so you don't have to change your posture to watch them.
Read those two openings against each other. One neighborhood corner went upscale-occasion. The block next door went late-night neighborhood pub. Neither existed here twelve months ago. If you've been driving to South End or Uptown for either of those experiences, you've been driving past both of them since the spring.
Symphony Park Is Now a Calendar
The lawn on Sharon Road used to have two identities: Summer Pops in June, and grass the rest of the time. That is not the schedule anymore.
Here is what's actually on the Symphony Park calendar from now through fall, in order:
- Sunday, July 26, 4 to 6 p.m. — Queen City Coolerfest at Symphony Park.
- Saturday, September 19, 2 to 8 p.m. — The Bougie Picnic at Symphony Park.
Both events sit on top of a spring series most residents already know. SouthPark After 5 happened six times in the spring of 2026, every Thursday from April 16 through May 21, at Symphony Park at 4400 Sharon Rd., on the corner of Barclay Downs Drive and Carnegie Boulevard, adjacent to the Dick's Sporting Goods at SouthPark Mall. It is free to attend and family and dog friendly, outside beverages and coolers are not permitted per ABC law, but outside food is permitted.
And the flagship series just wrapped its 43rd summer. The 2026 lineup ran June 7 with American Classics, June 14 Best of Broadway, June 21 Hollywood Hits, and June 27 Celebrate America with a fireworks finale, all at Symphony Park at 8:15 p.m. Tickets to the concert were $15 to $18 in advance or $20 to $25 at the gate. If you skipped it this year, mark the calendar in April for 2027 tickets rather than the gate price.
The point is not that any single event is transformative. The point is that a resident can now plan four or five Sunday or Thursday evenings a year around a walkable lawn instead of a highway. That's a different neighborhood than it was three summers ago.
The Retail Reshuffle Is Doing Something Weird
Two closures and one expansion tell the same story about where SouthPark shopping is consolidating.
The Craic opened at Sharon Square in the former Rusty Bucket location, and Fontana di Vino closed its SouthPark restaurant at Sharon Square, though the Davidson location remains open. That's a straight swap in the same shopping center: a slow-service Italian dinner spot out, a late-night Irish pub in.
Two blocks over, the specialty retail center is quietly reorganizing. Women's clothing boutique Ivy & Leo relocated from its longtime space at Specialty Shops SouthPark to Sharon Corners in the former Swoozie's space, and KK Bloom's retail shop on Selwyn Avenue closed after 16 years to focus on online shopping. Neighborhood boutiques leaving physical retail is a national story, but the local read is that Sharon Corners is absorbing tenants Specialty Shops used to hold.
The expansion in the middle of this is the tell. Renaissance Patisserie at Specialty Shops SouthPark expanded with a larger kitchen, more seating and a dedicated space for takeout orders, and chef and owner Sylvain Rivet said they have built a community around the art of French pastry. Food and service uses are growing on the block while general apparel retail is thinning out. If you keep waiting for your favorite shop to reopen after a renovation, check that it's actually coming back before you write off the trip.
One more update worth knowing if you're planning a wedding in the family: Ladies of Lineage Bridal at Phillips Place is now the exclusive Carolinas retailer for Danielle Frankel Studio, a New York label known for architectural draping, impeccable tailoring, luxury fabrics and modern-yet-timeless bridal designs.
A Sunday That Doesn't Require Your Car
Here is the practical upshot of all of this, arranged the way a resident might actually use it.
Say it's July 26. You want a Sunday that feels like the neighborhood is doing something without spending the afternoon on Providence Road. Late morning coffee and pastries at Renaissance Patisserie in Specialty Shops. Walk the fifteen minutes over to Symphony Park by four for Queen City Coolerfest. When the music winds down at six, cross Carnegie to the Rotunda block. Laurel Park's patio if you're eating early, The Craic if you want the late-night version of the evening and a room with twenty screens in it.
That itinerary did not exist in July 2024. Half of the stops weren't open. The lawn didn't have a July event on it. The Rotunda corner was dark.
There is one small piece of infrastructure that ties this together for people who don't want to move their car. The SouthPark Skipper is a point-to-point ride service offering free rides within the SouthPark neighborhood every day from 8am to 9pm. Most residents who live here still don't use it. It's the answer to the parking question on any of these Sunday afternoons.
The neighborhood is quietly rewarding people who actually walk around in it right now. Pay attention for a season and you'll notice the corners moving.
If you're thinking about how these shifts affect what your home is worth on this side of Sharon Road, or you're looking to land closer to the Rotunda block on your next move, SERHANT. North Carolina is happy to help you read the block-by-block picture. Request Your Free Home Valuation & Marketing Plan and we'll build one specific to your address.
